Symphonie fantastique

The most inventive masterpiece in the history of French music, an equally evocative interlude in an atmosphere of passion and night, then Marie-Ange Nguci's fairy fingers in Saint-Saëns's delightful concerto: more than a symphony, the whole program promises to be fantastic.

Berlioz's symphony is "fantastic" in every sense of the word: the way it probes the author's fantasies, its unheard-of orchestral inventions, its powerful bells. Berlioz takes his cue from Beethoven's symphonies, but also evokes Thomas de Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium Eater, and, above all, never ceases to tell the story of himself, overwhelmed by his love for the young Irish actress who played Ophelia when he discovered Hamlet. An evocation of night and nightmarish love, unlike that of Augusta Holmès: La Nuit et l'Amour sings endlessly of ecstatic happiness. This is one of the most beautiful pages by this composer, whose self-sacrificing career testifies, despite the support of her "dear friend" Saint-Saëns, to the reality of the woman artist until very recently. Saint-Saëns is precisely the composer Marie-Ange Nguci chose when she was immediately invited back to play a concerto, following the success of her recital at the Auditorium in February 2023. The former piano child prodigy, who entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of 11, set her sights on Saint-Saëns' sparkling Second Concerto . Alternately tender, lyrical or passionate, but never disdaining purely spectacular virtuosity, this work has no equal for revealing a pianist's talent and ruffling the audience's feathers.

Running time: 1h40 + intermission (20 min).